New Agreement Gives State Workers a 10% Raise

By David Darman on Friday, June 15, 2007.

listen:

State employees would get a 10 percent raise over the next two years under the tentative agreement for a new contract announced yesterday.

But state workers would also have to start contributing to their health insurance premiums.

New Hampshire Public Radioâ€™s David Darman has more.

The agreement between New Hampshire officials and the State Employees Association bargaining team offers workers a small raise right up front.

And it offers them a 3.5 percent pay hike next year, and a 5.5 percent hike the year after that.

Colin Manning, a spokesman for Governor Lynch, says the Governor thinks the pay hikes are entirely in order.

He views this is an overall and long term strategy to recruit and retain quality state employees. This contract is a first step in this process and we continue to move forward.

But to get that raise, state employees are going to have to begin paying part of their health care premiums.

The amount employees contribute would be modest, 25 dollars per pay period.

Diana Lacey, head of the SEA bargaining team, says her colleagues wanted it low, to encourage workers to seek medical help if they need it.

What we donâ€™t want to do is make healthcare unaffordable and then drive the cost of healthcare up because people let things go and fester and then youâ€™re looking at hospitalization when maybe you could have just been looking at an office visit.

The state employs more than 10,000 workers, so the increased salary costs in the tentative agreement will add millions to the state budget.

House Finance Chair Marjorie Smith of Durham, a Democrat, says she supports the contract.

But she says she knows the budget doesnâ€™t have enough in it right now to handle the increased costs.

Still, Smith wants to reassure SEA members that they have nothing to worry about if they ratify the agreement.

Weâ€™ll be able to, to find the moneyâ€¦.not easily. But weâ€™ll be able to find the money to honor our commitments for the next biennium.

Lawmakers, union officials, and budget analysts are hailing the tentative employment agreement as a breakthrough of sorts in state labor negotiations.

Steve Norton of the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies says for many years, the SEA kept health benefits off the table during labor negotiations.

He says the unionâ€™s concession in this area bodes well for future labor negotiations.

This opens the door to a broader conversation about the mix of wages and benefits and I think thatâ€™s historic, it obviously hasnâ€™t happened in the past. And in order for the â€¦.state employees to agree to that, there had to be a significant increase in wages to offset the loss in value of benefits.

Members of the SEA now have the chance to vote on the tentative agreement.

Union officials are recommending it pass.

It takes a majority of members to ratify it.